Many airborne bioparticles can adversely affect human, animal, and agricultural health by acting as allergens and pathogens. Applications of particle detection that have particular importance for health and human safety include monitoring particles in connection with homeland security; moldy homes after water/flood damage; occupational health environments where high human traffic can lead to spread of infectious diseases; areas where seasonal allergies are important; hospital environments where control of pathogen spread is of critical public health importance; and areas where bio-warfare agents may deployed. Airborne bioparticles are also important for diverse natural processes such as the spread and germination of organisms as well as the formation and evolution of clouds.
The importance of particle monitoring sensors for these applications is reflected in the continuous and ongoing development of these devices to improve reliability and throughput, and to enable efficient detection and characterization of particles. For example, currently significant attention is being directed to developing inexpensive and versatile systems capable of characterizing a wide range of biological particles on the basis of optical properties, such as scattering, fluorescence or Raman. As a result, design strategies for providing optical particle classification systems capable of reliable detection and effective implementation for characterization of bioparticles is recognized as a priority in the development of the next generation of these devices.